In my long experience in Washington, vice presidents did not make major foreign policy announcements or threaten other countries with war. Not even Dick Cheney stole this role from the weak president George W. Bush.

But yesterday the world witnessed VP Pence threaten North Korea with war. “The sword stands ready,” said Pence as if he is the commander in chief.

Perhaps he is.

Where is Trump? As far as I can tell from the numerous emails I receive from him, he is at work marketing his presidency. Once Trump won the election, I began receiving endless offers to purchase Trump baseball caps, T-shirts, cuff-links, coffee mugs, and to donate $3 to be entered into a raffle to win some memorabilia. The latest offer is a chance to win one of “personally signed five incredible photographs of our historic and massive inauguration.” https://donate.donaldjtrump.com/signed-inauguration-photo-sweepstakes

For Trump, the presidency is a fund-raising device. If his VP, National Security Advisor, Secretary of Defense, UN Ambassador, CIA Director, whoever, want to start wars wherever, that’s just more memorabilia to raffle off for a $3 donation.

As a result of Trump’s failure to govern his own government, we have VP Pence telling Russia and China that there could be a nuclear exchange on their borders between the US and North Korea. Although Pence is not smart enough to know, this is not something Russia and China will accept.

Washington worries about North Korea having nuclear weapons, but the entire world worries that Washington has nuclear weapons. And so many of them. World polls have shown that the majority of the world’s population are far more concerned about the threat to peace posed by Washington and Israel than by Iran, North Korea, Russia and China.

Pence prefaced his “the sword stands ready” remark with “the United States of America will always seek peace,” which after Serbia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, and Syria is as false a statement as it is possible to make. From Washington’s perspective it is always Washington’s victims that are “reckless and provocative,” never Washington.

The US stands for war. If the world is driven to Armegeddon, it will be Washington, not North Korea, Iran, Russia, or China, that brings life on earth to an end.

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Trump’s willing to defy the Constitution, American laws and international law to unilaterally threaten and bomb multiple nations, but meekly surrenders to corrupt, leftist federal district judges on his immigration EO’s which were clearly within his presidential power. I guess we know where his priorities are.

PCR and the rest of us don’t seem to understand that Trump is playing a game of multidimensional, 4D chess. His seemingly head scratching and reckless moves in foreign policy is all by design and in reality he’s 10 steps ahead of other world leaders. At least that’s what Trump’s fanboys in the media and fanboy bloggers tell us.

All that Russian Conspiracy stuff seemed to be coming to a head; then we got the Syria strike; the Media did a U-Turn on Trump and the Komprimat narrative evaporated; and Trump, as you say, “disappeared”– the man Trump we knew and the corporeal Trump, too. He seems deflated and defeated.

I get the sense that something happened or was about to happen. I suspect that Trump came to understand that Paul Ryan was going to actively work against him and anything he tried to accomplish, and that that is either it partially, or was the something in toto.

The War Party seems pretty happy and that includes the Neocon Pence. I hate to admit it, but it appears that the whole Korea-Iran thing that that fine bunch often talks about is motivating a lot of this, and it may ultimately prove a kind of backdoor into the Middle East. Pence looks to be the go-to guy for the Neocon crowd, visiting the Jewish cemetary that purportedly had been attacked by anti-Semites (but not really), and visiting the DMZ to stare down those evil collaborators with the Iranians.

But I really can’t tell what the hell is going on. Sessions is still on track. Paul Ryan is clearly the anti-President that Obama was poised to be and will destroy the Trump Presidency as long as he is in office. Comey is a Democrat operative and needs to be behind bars. The CIA and Brennan are doing what they can to ruin things. Then you’ve got the Kushners in the Oval Office and the Goldman Sachs gang.

What a mess. I want to believe it’s part of a strategy to outfox the media, but that notion gets harder by the day.

“The last vote I cast was for Lyndon Johnson, the peace candidate. I’ve never been such a fool since.” — Gore Vidal addressing the National Press Club, March 19, 1988

I hereby ask Virgil to conduct me to the Ninth Circuit of Hell, where ex-voters, in fool’s caps, are compelled eternally to be ferried by Charon back and forth across the River of Despair, hearing the moans of the dying believers in the false god Democracy, knowing that they have been had by lying politicians from their 18th birthday onward, with the cynical laughter of Gore Vidal mocking them from a pit of acrid smoke.

You make a very important observation. The threat to North Korea was made by Pence, the VP. Normally, this sort of thing should be done by the President. So far as I know, you are the only commentator to mention this.
Trump too busy marketing ? Or too ill ? Stories about his treatment for prostrate or other cancer persist. Either way, his presidency won’t last the full 4 years.

On occasion, my mind wanders towards imagining what an American politician, Wall Street executive or a military general might actually say if he was given a truth serum and forced to speak to the world.

I’m sure what he said would quite closely mirror what the author of this article says above.

Trump once reportedly said during his campaign that the Vice-President would handle “domestic and foreign policy” while he, Trump, would “Make America Great Again.” Maybe Trump always intended to be the “media guy,” a glorified PR hack, if you will, while the Republican establishment did the actual governing.

Some have argued that Trump is neglecting/abandoning his “populist base.” To me, as I watch this Fellinian drama unfold from the other side of the world, this doesn’t pass the laugh test. Trump just told his “base” what they wanted to hear; he never asked them what they thought or anything else but their votes.

An important observation and a nicely done explication of the current situation. The Trump administration is fumbling its way into the same disaster that Hillary Clinton promised to give us. Behind all this is the eternal gaggle of Anglo-Zionist neocons which appears to be the real masters of this country. The idiot, Jared Kushner, appears to be their current conduit into the White House.

This column is a perfect example why the previously venerable Mr. Roberts is no longer employed to write for major, thoughtful publications; although this particular piece would serve well in the Onion!

I presume his approach was to go into the “almond orchard”, shake a few trees and then watch the nuts fall out in the Comment section. At that he has succeeded!